Virtualization – Converting Physical Machine to Virtual Without Shutdown

kvm-virtualizationlvmmigrationphysical-to-virtualvirtualization

I have to create virtual copy of existing server (for testing purpose).

I have two (physical host) hosts:

  • main – this one will be used as source for virtual machine disk image. It has standard Ubuntu 10.04 installation. It uses LVM.
  • second – this one will be used as hypervisor host. It's also vanilla Ubuntu 10.04 installation. I plan to install kvm and crate guest machine that will be copy of main machine.

I would like to do it with out shutting down main machine.

I know I can use mondo for this (http://www.mondorescue.org/docs/p2v.pdf).
But I wonder if is possible only with using LVM snapshots. That is to create LVM snapshot of main and use it for creating virtual machine on second?

If LVM option is possible, could you please give me some links to tutorials that describes this procedure?

Best Answer

I decided I will shutdown my machine and boot it from live CD. But I found some interesting how to for windows: http://www.petri.co.il/physical-to-virtual-with-disk2vhd.htm

There is also interesting tool from vmware that can do what I need (migrate linux machine) but it needs windows to be used as VM host - http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/

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